It was that appetite that worried Tom more than anything those days. The second week in Amesville he conceived the idea of keeping account of his expenditures, and the result was disheartening. The best he could do was sixty-five cents a day, and that came to nearly four dollars a week. Add to that his fare to and from Derry and the total reached to almost five dollars a week! Tom’s heart sank. At such a rate the money he had saved would be gone some time in February! For several days after that he nearly starved himself trying to economise and got so thin and peaked-looking that even Mr. Cummings noticed it. It was Mrs. Cleary who finally solved his problem after a fashion. There was a friend of hers, she informed him one evening, a Mrs. Burns and a fine lady entirely, who had started to take table boarders in the next street. Mrs. Cleary thought maybe Tom would like to test Mrs. Burns’s hospitality. Tom went around there the next morning and arranged for breakfasts and suppers. In view of the fact that he would be away on Sundays, Mrs. Burns bargained to take him for two dollars and a half a week. As his lunches at school seldom cost him more than fifteen cents--and sometimes only ten--he stood to save at least fifty cents weekly by this arrangement. And Mrs. Burns set a very good table, as it proved. There were no dainties, but whatever she put before her boarders was substantial and well-cooked. Her guests were mostly workers around the railroad, men with big, honest appetites and table manners that at first shocked Tom a good deal. After he got to know several of the men rather well, he was quite willing to forgive them their lack of niceties. Every Saturday evening Tom returned to Derry. Usually either Uncle Israel or John Green drove to the station and met him. Then there was a supper that more than made up for any lack during the week. Aunt Patty made a special occasion of that weekly home-coming and cooked the things Tom best liked. Uncle Israel always greeted him as if they had parted at dinner time, but during the evening he always had to hear what had happened during the week.